A MALE nurse accused of sex attacks on women waking from surgery told police he had never molested a single patient.

Gavin Nicholson allegedly groped a string of victims when they underwent operations at The Spire private hospital in Washington where he worked in the recovery room.

But the 56-year-old former military policeman and court bailiff - who is accused of six charges of sexual assault involving five women - claimed he was innocent during a succession of interviews with detectives.

Newcastle Crown Court heard him say that he said he had never abused his position as a nurse as he told officers that his previous career as a policeman in the RAF left him baffled by the charges he was facing.

“I am an ex-copper myself and I just can’t understand these allegations,” Nicholson said.

“When I was a copper there had to be a motive or something. I have never, ever – I repeat again – sexually assaulted a female under my care.”

Married Nicholson, who joined The Spire initially as a ward nurse in 2001, said patients were normally “groggy” after their operation and anaesthetic.

He told how his son had found information on the internet about some anaesthetics, including a drug used on some of the alleged victims, triggering “sexual hallucinations”.

And he said some of his own patients had behaved bizarrely as they started to come round.

“I had a 19 stone man wake up and say ‘give me a hug’,” Nicholson said. “A couple of days later a lady woke up and said ‘you didn’t give me a kiss last night’.”

One woman has told the jury how she was repeatedly groped while she was struggling to breathe in the recovery room after surgery.

But Nicholson, from Harraton, Washington, said: “I looked after her for two hours. I was extremely concerned about her and there is no way I assaulted her.”

Nicholson denies all the charges against him, which cover the period of March 2007 and September 2008.

Beginning his evidence before the jury, he told how he decided to seek a career in nursing when he realised his then job as a trainee insurance agent was not for him.

“My wife started working in nursing homes and I had slowly got involved in helping,” he said.

He studied at Northumbria University on a three-year course, gained a permanent position at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary, and moved to The Spire in November 2001.